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by Doug Horchak

Before one can expect to make friends, he or she needs to see the value in having them in the first place! The old song “No Man Is an Island” is true! People need people. Those who try to prove they don’t need others set themselves up for failure or disappointment in life.

If you are to make friends, you must value the need for them. The Bible uses the metaphor of the human body when talking about the closest of all friendship groups—the Church. The apostle Paul says, “And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

The point is, we are not made to be totally independent creatures! To be successful, we really cannot go it alone. A do-it-yourself attitude leads to a lonely life that often doesn’t work very well. From the beginning, God designed human beings to be social. Adam became lonely because there was no one comparable to him—which (among other reasons!) is why God created Eve!
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And below is snapshot of some prompt responses of this post in FaceBook network.

by David Treybig

I didn’t want to do it. Even though I knew things weren’t working out with the girl I was dating and that continuing to date her would be misleading her, I didn’t really want to tell her because I thought she would take it pretty hard. Finally, I knew I had to break it off and told her so one evening. Man, was I right. It was hard for me to do and she was hurt. What could I have done differently? How would you do it?

Ending a friendship (or a relationship) is something no one likes to talk about. It’s definitely more enjoyable to think about friendships that are fun and uplifting than ones that are ending. And unless you are facing such a decision right now, chances are you haven’t really focused on this aspect of friendships. Yet we all know that occasionally friendships end. Sometimes it just has to be that way. But stay with me on this. Sooner or later, you are going to have to end a friendship, too, and you need to know how to do it properly.

As we all know, sometimes friendships end themselves. We don’t have to end them because they have already come to an end through an announcement or confrontation. You know the scenarios. Your friend tells you that he or she is moving out of state. In this case, the matter is out of your control. You are sad, but you know the end didn’t come because the friendship failed. You may even try to stay in touch with this person via E-mail or the phone.
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I can’t change your past with all it’s heartache and pain,
nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.

I can’t keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.

Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your laughter.

Your decisions in life are not mine to make, nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask.

I can’t prevent you from falling away from friendship,
from your values, from me.
I can only pray for you, talk to you and wait for you.

I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you,
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow,
room to be yourself.

I can’t keep your heart from breaking and hurting,
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces
and put them back in place.

I can’t tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.

Birmingham, UK (PRWEB) November 3, 2008 — Packt’s annual Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award reached its climax today with the announcement that Drupal has won the Overall category, collecting a first prize of $5,000. Three months after it was launched and a staggering 20,000 votes later, Drupal finished ahead of Joomla! and DotNetNuke to retain the Award it won in 2007.

Released as an Open Source project by founder Dries Buytaert in 2001, Drupal has grown substantially and has been downloaded almost 1.5 million times in the last 12 months. It is currently being applied by companies such as Warner Brothers Music, MTV UK, and the New York Observer amongst others.

“These awards are a testament to the valuable contributions from dedicated Drupal community members around the globe” said Buytaert in response to the news. “Working together, the Drupal community is building the future of the dynamic web so that anyone can quickly build great social publishing websites” he concluded.

With votes coming from a panel of industry experts and visitors to Packt’s website, this year’s Awards proved to be the most popular and also the highest quality. The task of selecting a top three from the finalists was a difficult one for the judges due to their high standards and myriad features.

Finishing in second place and receiving $3,000 was Joomla!, the youngest of the three finalists and a previous winner of the Overall Award. Judges were impressed with Joomla’s ease of installation and ability to get a website up-and-running in a short space of time. Particular praise was reserved for its sizeable and enthusiastic community, which has allowed the project to grow so quickly in such a short space of time.

In third place and receiving $2,000 was DotNetNuke, the only CMS in the final that is written in VB.NET for the ASP.NET framework. DotNetNuke received positive feedback from judges who were impressed with its ease of development and security implementation features.

Alongside the Overall Award, Packt ran categories for best Open Source PHP Content Management System and best Open Source CMS that isn’t written in PHP. The final category was the Most Promising Open Source CMS, which was won by SilverStripe. Packt handed out a total of $20,000 in prize money to the winning Content Management Systems.

Winners in the other final categories include:
-   Most Promising: SilverStripe
-   Best Open Source PHP: Drupal
-   Best non PHP Open Source CMS: Plone

The Awards were designed to recognize and reward Open Source CMS’s for their consistently high standards in what is an extremely competitive field. The result of this year’s Award confirms this quality and also suggests that there isn’t necessarily one CMS that is the best, more that there is the best one to fit an individual user’s needs and requirements.

Full results of the 2008 Open Source CMS Award can be found at PacktPub.com/Award

About Packt
Packt is a modern, unique publishing company with a focus on producing cutting-edge books for communities of developers, administrators, and newbies alike.

Packt’s books and publications share the experiences of fellow IT professionals in adapting and customizing today’s systems, applications, and frameworks. Their solutions-based books give readers the knowledge and power to customize the software and technologies they’re using to get the job done.

For more information, please visit www.PacktPub.com.

By Sean Yarbrough

Twenty years ago, a U.S. Senate committee heard testimony on climate change from NASA climatologist James Hansen. He told the committee that “the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”

Hansen’s landmark testimony triggered an avalanche of research, political debate and environmental activism that continues to this day. However, there are concerns about where all of this is taking us. Some believe there is a dark side to environmentalism that is beginning to overshadow the good work of those who simply wish to take care of our natural resources.

The two extremes
As in every aspect of life, there are extremes in the way people view the environment. Some greedy businesspeople couldn’t care less about the damage they do to the earth. At the other extreme, ecoterrorists seem not to care about people and destruction of property.

Groups such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) have claimed responsibility for multiple acts of ecoterrorism during the past decade, including the recent destruction of three luxury homes near Seattle, Washington, with damages totaling $7 million. Ironically, these homes and the surrounding housing developments were designed to be environmentally friendly.
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Everything happens for a reason. Our life exists in this planet for some reason and this is not an accident that we are here. Nothing occurs by chance or due to good or bad luck. Problems and sorrows are there in our lives which teach us the way of living our life. Our life without problems would be like a smoothly coated and straight road without any destination. There is no meaning of life without any proper destination.

I believe that we must learn to accept everything that comes in our life as an opportunity to discover new things. It’s easy for everyone to be thankful for good results only. But to be thankful when you are in trouble is obviously very difficult. So find the way to be thankful in every situation of your life. If you want to make your life beautiful then always start your day with positive thinking and be thankful to God for adding one more day in your life. We may have very bad past and may have done stupid mistakes in our life. If we treat them as our experience, acceptance and emergence then it will help us to heal such pasts. Never regret for your past mistakes and failures but try to accept it as a sequence of lessons that advance us to higher levels of living and caring.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or thinks you wrong, forgive them. If someone loves you, love them back without any conditions. Love them not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and to release your heart and eyes to things that you would have never felt without them. Be grateful for every moment of your life. You can make your life according to your wish. But you must leave everything in God and ask for His guidance in the whole thing you wish for.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning  of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and  told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful   wrapped gift box.

Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily, he raised his voice at his father and said, “With all your money you give  me  a Bible?” and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care things. When he arrived at  his father’s house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.

He began to search his father’s important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears,  he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible. It  had a tag with the dealer’s name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words… PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss God’s blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?